Ante Mortem (12 page)

But back to business.
“Best place to jump the fence is around the side here.”

Tim looked up at him through a fringe of dark bangs. “That’s how I did it last night.”

Elliot tried to stop his face from falling, but didn’t quite make it. “Why’d you come then?”

“
Scouting. The groundskeeper came around once or twice…”

When Tim trailed off, Elliot smirked. “Can’t outrun a 75 year-old, shovel-wielding hunchback?”

Tim set his jaw, stood a little straighter.

“
Come on, man. This place is amazing. You go in far enough, you’ll come out a changed man.”

Clever little joke.
Too bad Tim can’t appreciate it. Yet.

Tim screwed up his face, a comical determination taking over, ending with his eyes. He almost looked angry, and it suited him. Made him less little-boyish.

Elliot just kept smiling. This might be his easiest one yet.

You go in far enough, you’ll come out a changed man.

Tim had used all his self-control in the split second after Elliot said it. Watching the back of that pretty blonde head retreat around the corner, he felt like he’d been rubbed all over with sandpaper on the inside.

Funny to think how a few days ago, he’d been happy about this assignment. Fate handing him the answers, the chance he’d half wanted, half hoped wouldn’t come. Timothy Maclaren and Elliot Prince, slips of paper drawn at the same time. And then, just when it couldn’t get any better, Elliot told him he wanted to start their project with a long night in a dark, secluded spot.

Sure, it was illegal. But Tim didn’t mind unexpected luck, as a general rule. Now he had warring urges to laugh and cry. Cold dread seeped into him, nothing to do with the weather.

He’d do what he had to do, though.

Half a league, half a league

Half a league onward

Right?

Elliot reached through the fence for Tim’s pack, while Tim hauled himself up the wall behind the caretaker’s house and disappeared into the foliage of the nearby oak tree. Elliot peeked at the title of the book in the outer mesh pocket.

101 Great Poems

Huh. He’d expected Kerouac or Hesse or something else that seems brilliant in high school. Something a pseudo-intellectual like Tim would think made him look smart and deep. He had carried Shakespeare himself, back in the day.
Fucking embarrassing.

Elliot was about to extract the book for a closer look when a blinding halogen glow cut the night, the spotlight in the caretaker’s yard. He froze for a stuttering second.

The branches of the oak rustled, emitted an audible “Hell!”

The sound startled him into action; he shouldered the pack and raced for the nearest patch of darkness against the wall. When he slammed his back to the bricks, Tim dropped out of the tree in front of him, landing in an awkward pile on the long grass.

Elliot barely suppressed a laugh.

Tim launched himself toward the safety of the wall. When he got there, he was biting at the inside of his cheek, and he had a leaf stuck in his hair.

Elliot couldn’t stop himself, he picked it out and waved it in Tim’s face, laughing silently.

Tim’s cheeks puffed out; he looked away, obviously trying to quiet his own laughter.

A door slammed on the other side of the wall.

Right, better get moving.
Elliot dropped the leaf and whacked Tim’s arm to get his attention, then nodded to the nearest mausoleum rising from the sea of gaudy grave-markers.

Tim, still looking torn between abject horror and laughter, nodded.

They heard slow footsteps beyond the wall, and ran as fast as they could.

Tim tried to concentrate on the sensations; long grass swishing against his ankles, cold air heavy with the smell of rotting leaves crushing into his lungs. But there was Elliot just ahead of him, running too fast, too effortlessly, to remind him what was wrong with tonight.

All so easy for a guy like him, isn’t it?

That made Tim feel a little better. And if Elliot thought it was the groundskeeper that scared him, that made it better too. But now it was close, and they were only running closer. Closer and colder with every step.

He didn’t know if he was happy or sad, but he hoped Elliot wouldn’t make him laugh again.

Elliot swung around the mausoleum and reached out, grabbing Tim’s arm.

Tim practically screeched to a stop, panting, “Jesus.”

Elliot tried to calm his own breathing, but even magic couldn’t argue with a pack-a-day habit. He grinned anyhow, enjoying his heart thudding hard against his ribcage.

A lot of life in the middle of a silent necropolis.
He congratulated himself on the artistic sensibilities he displayed by appreciating the contrast.
Fuck you all—I’m glad you’re dead. Won’t catch me underground.

Not if he kept this scheme running, anyhow. There were a lot of magics available to people willing to do what was necessary. Death magic just happened to be Elliot’s personal choice. He was young and good-looking; he had too much to lose to choose any other.

“
What if he follows?” Tim was still panting. “He might tell the school—”

“
What if he does? Dr. Kline would just pat us on the back for being so hands-on—hell, he’s an old hippy. We’ll probably run into him getting high behind a mausoleum.”

Tim cracked a smile, which, in the moonlight, made him appear ten years younger.

“
Anyhow, the best part is the old graveyard.” Elliot shot his companion a sideways glance. “You go there last night?”

Tim hesitated.

Elliot narrowed his eyes.

Another moment of silence. Finally, Tim said, “I don’t think so. I’m not sure where anything is.”

Elliot tried to back off. There was no way Tim had found out; if he had, he wouldn’t be here now. “It’s cool. I know this place inside out.”

“
You can give me my stuff back.”

Right, the backpack.
Elliot held it out. “What’s up with the poems?”

Huh.
He hadn’t meant to ask so quickly.
Well, whatever.

Tim slung the pack over one shoulder. “Dunno. I like something different every day.”

Elliot surprised himself. Not only had he not regretted losing five seconds of his life listening to that answer, but he actually asked, “For what?”

Tim paused, looked him in the eye for a minute and seemed to consider whether or not he should answer truthfully.

Elliot surprised himself again by waiting for the answer patiently, leaning against the cold stone of the mausoleum and sinking into the comfortable feeling of the place.

Even before he’d discovered their uses, he’d always liked cemeteries—this one in particular. Liked that they were quiet and empty, but he never felt all that alone in them.

Eventually, Tim spoke again. “You know that thing where you open the refrigerator and stare inside, but you don’t know what you want exactly? You’re just hungry for
something
?”

“
Yeah.”

“
It’s like that. I want something, but I don’t know what. I stare at my book shelf and wait for it to tell me.”

“
Does it?”

“
No. That’s what I get for buying furniture at Wal-Mart, I guess.”

Elliot snorted. “I’m disturbed that I get that.”

Tim grinned—possibly the first unselfconscious face he’d made in the three days since their assignment. “So I pick random stuff up every day and see where it takes me. This seemed like a good graveyard book. Been reading it all day.”

Elliot let himself appear interested. Tim was sold on him, he was sure. It couldn’t get any easier.

Too bad the guy’s kind of smart, though. Maybe he could hold a real conversation, even.

No time to find out. They’d know he was here, by now. They’d be expecting him.

Tim knew right away he shouldn’t have given a straight answer. He’d thought of it as a safe confession—the kind you give when you know you won’t have to see someone again. Like saying “I’ve always loved you, goodbye” or “That was me that ran over your dog last summer, goodbye” or “I used to watch the back of your head in class and wonder if you’d talk to me like this if we were stuck on a deserted island. But goodbye, you horrible motherfucker.”

He’d liked it more than that, and it left a hollow feeling in his guts.

Tim made himself think about Benny. The blank expression behind his eyes. The paleness of his lips. The look on his mother’s face when she’d come to take him home, for good. Hard to imagine he’d ever be coming back to school when he’d lost his mind.

Or his soul, as it turns out.
But Tim hadn’t known that until last night.

Elliot lit a cigarette, then held up his lighter for Tim. “So you’re not always reading to try and pick up chicks?”

Tim leaned forward and took the first drag to get the cherry going. He smoked like someone who never smoked; awkward fingering, lips too pursed, but at least he didn’t choke. Then he let out a long breath and said, “That’s not really on my list of things to do.”

Elliot looked at him sideways, but Tim looked straight ahead.

Elliot smirked; he supposed he’d seen Tim with Benny once or twice, come to think of it. Now he wondered if they’d been fucking, or just friends. It would be more poetic if they’d been fucking.

He bit back the smirk, watching Tim try to hide himself in the cigarette. They were coming up on the old section; the paved walkways thinner, the markers less gaudy—fewer giant angels and replicas of the Washington Monument over grandma’s grave. Overgrown trees and shrubs and jagged broken stones were more in order, a place where the Earth was in the process of taking back its own.

He felt himself tightening inside, his senses sharpening, but he forced himself to slow down in light of this new and interesting information about his companion.

They’d wait for a few minutes. They had with Benny, after all.

Tim pointed to his right. “Look at that one. That’d work.”

When Elliot saw the massive menhir of a gravestone, he remembered with a stupid shock why Tim thought they were here—local history. Tim dropped his cigarette, took his pack off, produced an ancient Nikon and a flashlight, then handed the latter to Elliot.

Elliot produced his own slick digital as they approached the marker. The thing was maybe five feet tall, smooth and oblong and alien among the tiny square jobs favored in the late 1800s. The writing was still obvious, and Tim crouched in front of it, producing a smaller light from his own pocket. The inscription was pocked with bits of scruffy green and yellow moss.